


An Atlas In My Hands

by maevestrom



Series: Vildeblume Cafe Collection: FE Femslash July 2019 [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Anxiety, Bad Flirting, Coffee Shops, Culture Shock, F/F, FE Femslash Week 2019, Immigration & Emigration, Language Barrier, Lesbian Dating, Maps, Photography, Sapphism, Shyness, Village life, by babies who should not flirt that much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 00:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19801351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maevestrom/pseuds/maevestrom
Summary: Femslash Week 2019:Prompt 1: MightyImmigrant Mozu finds out how to speak hard work and honoring yourself in Ylissean through chef jobs at the coffee shops and new photos pinned on the Ylisstol map. A new waitress joins and everything that was in Mozu's orbit starts to come together as the language adapts to her presence and the love Mozu feels for her.





	An Atlas In My Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Maeve's Femslash Week project, the Vildeblume Collection! All seven of the upcoming stories will have the hub or launchpad of the fictional Vildeblume Coffeeshop. All of the pairings you will see are (mostly) cross-stories with a Fates character and Awakening character. They were decided by random except by the Free For All. Like I literally made random.org do all the work deciding and picked my favorites. It was a great challenge and I was inspired to write in ways that were self-indulgent and others that challenged me. I hope it shows.
> 
> The song this title is referencing is Atlas Hands by Benjamin Francis Leftwich.

It all probably started when the new hire showed up and Mozu learned that  _ love, at first sight,  _ was a thing, and she’s been baffled ever since. 

Mozu’s mama instilled a sense of hard work in her baby girl through long days and nights on the farm, and that hasn’t left her even three years after moving to the big city in the bigger nation. You can take the girl out of Hoshido, but you can’t take Hoshido out of the girl. Even as Mozu did her best to learn Ylissean before she moved here when she wasn’t even all that great at reading and writing Hoshidan, she could tell that Hoshidan didn’t need to be the first language she wrote to be the first language she knew.

She could read Hoshidan in its sense of togetherness (even if she was usually in the back row of any family dinners). Its sense of adventure (even if she knew about it more than experienced it). Its sense of courage (that she loved in theory, wishes she had as bad as anything). She was pretty good at reading Hoshidan’s silent language, but the only thing she was good at writing was the good ol’ Hoshidan sense of reward through hard work. 

Hard work has always been her first language. It’s why she’d spend long nights at classes on Ylisse even though she’d never been to school. It’s why she makes sure every aspect of her hole-in-the-wall studio apartment is decorated just like how her mama decorated the farmhouse back home. It’s why she hustled getting job interviews and showing her skill to people who always found a reason not to hire her for her first four months before she got a job cooking at the Vildeblume Cafe in less than an afternoon, where she’s been without a fuss for about two and a half years and then some while she gets on her feet, because there’s nothing worth doing that doesn’t take a long while as far as Mozu’s concerned.

Then that dang new hire came in and threw her off her game so hard she landed in a jumble of letters she didn’t have a prayer in the world at translating.

\---

Mozu gets along like she always does- in the background. The Vildeblume Cafe, which apparently kind of means Wildflower but also kind of doesn’t, is in the background too. It’s a little coffee shop in the middle of one of Ylisstol’s shopping neighborhoods for kind of well off fancy folk, but also kind of not. There are two taller buildings on each side save for a driveway that leads behind it, with a door straight to the kitchen that Mozu usually enters through. The main shop is a small, cozy little place with a few round tables, blue walls on each side save for hallways for bathrooms and the like, and the front which is a door, a steep ramp, and windows from floor to ceiling. Right in front, there’s a nice plain counter with a few wooden barstools lining it, and you can generally find the manager Flora there by the register and talking to people, which Mozu knows she could never do.

Luckily, she spends her time in the kitchen with the other chefs. There aren’t very many, because there aren’t all that many complex things to make. They work like a machine, getting out every order they need to and then going home without saying a word to each other. Sure, they talk to each other but Mozu doesn’t even think they know her name. Not that she knows theirs either, just that they’re all from this continent. 

She takes pictures with her newfangled phone that is apparently still a few models behind, but Mozu doesn’t see the need to spend money where she doesn’t have to. Sometimes the photos are of herself- she used to be awful at the whole selfie thing, but she finds a few pleasant angles where she looks pretty dang cute. They’re modest enough, but she’s comfortable in the small town girl look. 

Besides, they’re for her mama. She’s gotta be modest in them. 

She takes a few snaps of herself, of the apartment she’s living in (every time she gets a new decorative item), and of Ylisstol, the city she touched down in. She gets two copies of each good one sent to a 24 Hour Photo. One batch sent to her mama- she isn’t great at reading or writing either so she sends the visuals instead with a little rudimentary Hoshidan on the back- and a batch stays with herself so she knows that she’s doing fine. 

She buys a big map of downtown Ylisstol and of where the cafe is and pins it to the wall, then pins each image of Ylisstol to a spot on it. It helps her break down a city larger than she ever imagined and keeps her from getting lost, but she can’t help but notice how all the photos are empty. 

Mozu’s life is simple right now, probably in part because she always makes sure to do one thing right rather than risking doing a bunch of things wrong. That thing is hard work, just like it was back home. Sure, she might take a little bit of cash to indulge on a candle or lantern for her apartment, and sometimes she might spend the night getting lost in the city and asking for directions back in broken Ylissean, and the only thing with her is often a can of mace and a metal knife that never make it into her photos or even out of her bag, but the main thing is work. Does it make a lot of money for her? Not a crazy amount. Still, cooking is part of what she loved to do on the farm, and honestly, the Vildeblume feels like home in a way that so few places ever could for Mozu. 

Even her own home village.

Not that her mama knows. All she knows is that Mozu works at a cafe. She is a cafe chef. She is a cafe chef from Hoshido writing back to her mother who has never imagined a world where anything but couples like her and dad exist. It’s a system set inside a system set inside a system that Mozu could never really understand. Or, to be honest, could ever really settle for. Everyone seemed to settle for it, no one really ran towards it, which made the idea of romance something Mozu was not drawn to as she knew it. She just also knew that romance was something more than that.

If her mama ever asks why she left, it’s because she wanted to try something new. More specifically, it’s to try and figure out what that something was.

She started to figure it all out when the new hire showed up on her first day and Mozu learned that  _ love, at first sight,  _ was a thing

\---

Mozu has to focus extra hard on her cooking when she first sees the new hire. Thankfully, she's working the front of the house so Mozu can only think of what little she’s seen of her. She’s… pretty. She’s very pretty in all of the ways that Mozu realizes she likes. She’s fit, she’s spry, she’s tall, she’s got a body that works, and Mozu can’t help but admire that. Or well, maybe a little more than admire, but the same general idea. 

She’s also never seen a human with as much hair as she has, all done up so intricately in braids and ponytails and still seeming like a blanket of cherry blossoms that only bloom once a year back home. That’s the stuff she knows, but Mozu knows that isn’t it. She’s seen pretty girls before. She saw a few in her village back home, but there were none that made Mozu feel… like this. There’s something more. Just that Mozu doesn’t know what that  _ more _ is.

It doesn’t cross her mind very much because she doesn’t let it. She’s used to not letting  _ those thoughts  _ cross her mind very often. Then one day there’s a loud and angry discussion between two people in the cafe and it’s so loud that Olivia looks spooked by it. That’s when it sort of clicks, and Mozu’s a little blown away by how much it does, how much Olivia echoes her sort of shyness despite being, well, the kind of goddess her village always encouraged her to worship.

Mozu steps in cautiously but one of the girls are already gone, leaving a crying teenage girl that looks very very vaguely familiar to her. Mozu looks at her as she sniffles, recognizing her dress as very conservative and wealthy Hoshidan, the type that looks like it’s raining all the time even though it’s not. Mozu takes a risk and says hello in Hoshidan, and the other Hoshidan says it back, and that’s the most eloquent that Mozu has felt in ages. The two talk for a little, the other woman- Sakura, which is a common Hoshidan name but also very familiar to Mozu- worried she just made her girlfriend feel bad but is so scared that her family is gonna hate her. It’s not said  _ what if they hate her because she’s my girlfriend,  _ but Sakura seems so ashamed that Mozu knows that it’s just like the pressure she felt, and that makes her want to cry, to have that confirmed. 

Still, the only advice Mozu can give is “honor yourself, okay? And I think right here if you honor her, you’re honoring yourself” or something like that, because while she wants to say  _ don’t let a damn thing hold back how much you care about this woman because you’re valid and have the right,  _ Mozu can’t say that to Sakura because Mozu’ll hear it too. Still, Sakura looks very thankful despite being shyer than both her and Olivia combined and wishes Mozu good luck. Mozu accepts but isn’t sure why she needs it until she passes Olivia and, while she doesn’t become  _ more  _ sure, feels the flurry inside her get more severe, more pointed, and Mozu never comes down from that heightened intensity.

\---

The manager’s a nice blue-haired woman named Flora with the vibe of a mama with adult children, whose eyes say something like “don’t worry, I got this”. She sets the tone for Mozu a lot to at least feel comfortable with these people she’s working with. If she weren’t there, then Mozu wouldn’t know what to do. Not because it’d be bad, but because Mozu kind of needs a baby gate when it comes to this sort of Vildeblume culture. She doesn’t want to mess it up, but it’s all so new to her life that she needs someone like Flora to keep her head on straight so as not to proverbially run into the street. 

Mozu’s in the kitchen most of the day, and her Ylissean’s never been too good as it is. The fellow chefs are all women, and occasionally their reverie is so overcome by slang that makes them cackle that Mozu doesn’t have a prayer for understanding. The waitresses come in and out- Flora, a hearty redheaded teenager who everyone calls Lune, and on occasion,  _ her _ .

Mozu really tries to keep her head on straight when she brings in a ticket. The others call her Olivia with a familiarity that Olivia doesn’t quite return. She tries to read the tickets aloud but is always so quiet that a chef with green hair shaved on the side says “hey, can you speak up, Livie-boo?” Mozu’s always scared by how she says it, but maybe she just hasn’t seen someone with such sharp teeth and strange piercings before and anything she’d say would be scary. 

Judging by how a stern bark-skinned woman taller than any she’s ever seen tells her to “leave Olivia alone”, she’s not the only one who thinks so. That woman always rereads the tickets like Flora and Lune do, causing everyone to get to work. The third, a dutiful and properlike pink-haired lady, generally traces Olivia’s quick footsteps, then Mozu’s mysteriously clammy behavior, and smiles in a way that makes Mozu defensive, but she’s never really been one to cause a fuss. Once, the lady giggles and, in a teasing voice only Mozu can hear, says “welcome to the crew, my dear.” 

Mozu blushes. She hasn’t really been part of a crew for the past few years now. Deep down, she always hoped that she would be part of a  _ crew _ like this, but if she actually is, she feels like she’s a little motion-sick.

\---

When the leaves start to change color and the streetlights start to pop on a little earlier, Mozu’s called by Flora to act as a waitress. Something about Lune being sick. The idea scares the hell out of Mozu. She’s okay with reading and writing Ylissean, but she can’t imagine anyone in the cafe wants to hear her try to speak it. Besides, the three other chefs are all from Ylisse, or at least Mozu is pretty sure. They’d probably be better waitresses. Mozu doesn’t think anyone would really miss the green-haired one. 

Still, she takes the opportunity to get a sense of who comes into the cafe. She knew about the general audience before, but now she can see them first-hand. The people who visit the Vildeblume are women. All kinds of women too, from different nations and different backgrounds. Mozu came from a village where almost every girl was the same, none standing out to really think about for too long. 

Here in Ylisse, she’d already seen a ton of women so radically different from each other, and so many would catch her eye. If she felt that she could pull it off, she’d wear what they wear, do what they do. The Vildeblume seemed to attract a kind of woman even more radical than what Ylisse introduced to Mozu, and Mozu always felt a little intimidated when asking them for orders, especially when she embarrassed so easily and spoke Ylissean so roughly that they didn’t seem too comfortable with her either. 

Their best source of income seemed to be from date nights. Specifically, date nights between women. Mozu noticed a lot of school-aged girls, even younger than Lune, populate the Vildeblume during summer weekdays, thinning out now that classes had started again. Even then, a steady little stream of women older than Mozu by five-to-fifteen years could be found year-round. Never really any around Mozu’s age- not young enough to be free and easy, not old enough to be established as an identity.

Mozu learns a lot whenever she sees them whilst passing by. She’d never known that there were so many different types of dates. Intimate kinds, awkward kinds, carefree kinds, kinds where both women were in lock step, kinds where both women just sassed back and forth through actions alone, kinds where both women just argued about something bigger than just that one date. As the waitress of the day, Mozu got to see a bunch of dates up-close, and in any spare moment she had, she fantasized about what it would be like to be on one of those dates. 

It was kind of funny how all of those imaginary dates involved Mozu and Olivia. 

Mozu uses a little of her time to watch how Olivia works as a waitress. Probably would be better to take Flora’s example, but really, Flora’s so effortless and charismatic that she feels a little unapproachable. Olivia is closer in age to Mozu and is a lot newer than Flora. She’s probably got a lot more to learn from than Flora, who’s just… way too good. 

Only Olivia’s way too good too.

Olivia doesn’t miss a step when there aren’t basically dragons in the kitchen waiting to pounce. She’s almost too perfect- engaging with them with rotating terms of endearment, repeating what others order after they say it, making casual conversation that ends as fast as it starts, and remembering the names of others as she brings the food back out. She doesn’t know what’s real and what’s Olivia being used to doing what she can to make a living, but she’s kinda gobsmacked. It makes her feel like she’s screwed the next table she serves because instead of such a lovely star like Olivia, they got Mozu. 

If her tips are smaller than anyone’s, she deserves it. 

After the shift ends, Mozu rests in the employee lounge and watches Olivia take off her hairnet with a heavy sigh, like unpinning a corset. Mozu feels the same way, but that’s probably just because she was bad at it and being around people makes her scared enough wanna hide under a stack of blankets and cry, especially in Ylisse where they also make her homesick, but most especially in Vildeblume where they make her scared, homesick, but remembering that there’s no easy way out. 

She tells Olivia that she did good. Those three words are the only ones Mozu feels confident in saying. Olivia’s eyes widen in surprise, and she says a few nonsense syllables before all but running out of the lounge like she was on fire. Mozu tries not to let on how hurt she is, but judging by the look Flora gives her when they meet after the shift, she doesn’t do very good. 

“You don’t have to do this waitressing gig again unless you really want to,” Flora promises.

Mozu really doesn’t want to. She wants to go home and cry herself to sleep, and by the end of the night, she does.

\---

Mozu came into Ylisse with ideals that she never told anyone else, even her mama. Her mama knew Mozu’s goals were to make her own life, but the specifics, she never really talked about. Maybe she just assumed that Mozu was just taking everything she learned into a big city, and basically, yeah, kind of. She wanted to work hard, to make her little patch of the universe, and to be happy with life. True, her domain was a tiny studio apartment rather than a rustic farmhouse, but it was something. 

Things were coming up Mozu just as she and her mama would expect, except down the line Mozu didn’t really want a husband to work with her as much as she wanted a wife. That shouldn’t have made a big difference, but it did. It’s why Mozu’s in Ylisse at all. She doesn’t get the sense that Ylisse is super accepting of that all, but she knows that where she was… 

Well, having to fight for something was a step up from never getting to battle.

She just wasn’t sure how.

She knew that some people were just… reading her wrong. Sure, the fellas always read her wrong- those trying to be nice and those… well, not. She’d never tell her mama even if she wanted to- fellas like that were the thing she zeroed on when she fretted about Mozu moving to Ylisse. Mozu’s got a small memory and forgets about a lot of instances of catcalls and phone numbers that go in the trash the second she's alone. Sure, she can’t really forget the feelings but she forgets them. 

The ladies always make her feel bad. 

As embarrassing as it was to say, Mozu moved to Ylisse because the key difference between Ylisse and her village was gonna be finding herself a lady and being a lady-loving lady. So she always feels guilty that whenever someone does find her appealing, she wants to stick her head into a paper bag and hyperventilate. She isn’t used to a lead-in not being slow. 

That’s how it worked back in the village. Courtship took a few months and then maybe they’d progress from there because it wasn’t all that often that if you courted someone you didn’t end up married to them down the line. And when these girls give her these cheesy damn pickup lines or phone numbers or just little shy ice-breaking compliments, yeah they feel different not just because Mozu is more inclined to them, but because they ain't villagers.

They’re either said with bold rebellion that makes Mozu feel like a prop in someone else’s demonstration or real quiet so as not to be heard by any ears but hers in case the world’s spying on them. Honestly, they scare her more. She often can’t get them out of her mind, the crossroads of theoretically what she wants and actually not really knowing who she is.

Mozu volunteers to act as a waitress on a packed day when Lune’s out with a cold when she snaps, probably because taking over wasn’t a good idea as it was. There was a lady with sandy hair in a headband- probably a year out of school but nothing really more than that- that always said something nice to Mozu, but also not really real, like someone gave her candy with a string tied to the wrapper. Like this lady found it in her to be this big ol’ complimenter to shy girls like Mozu. Like she was doing her a service. And she never wanted to give her a reason to pull that string even though she didn’t really wanna eat the candy. 

And by always, Mozu means  _ always,  _ like she served that lady once and every time she walked by it was something like “that dress is so cute” or “you  _ have  _ to tell me how you got your hair so shiny” or “oh my gosh, your walk is so  _ strong _ ” like, come on, who actually compliments someone’s walk? Mozu doesn’t have a good walk, shiny hair, or cute dresses, and all Headband Lady has that Mozu can see is a table for two with an open seat. 

And eventually, it all gets to be too much so much that even Mozu can’t keep her mouth shut. She knows she’s supposed to because waitresses never make a fuss, but she’s never met this Headband Lady before in her life, her damn  _ life,  _ and she drops the line “look at you, Miss Cutie, taking on the world!” with the desperation of someone  _ really trying to get her attention,  _ and Mozu just stops cold, scared out of her mind, and the only thing she can do is throw the candy out of her pocket.

“Stop!”

The Headband Lady looks surprised, but she backs off a lot easier than Mozu expected. That’s what makes Mozu regret her outburst because it’d be easier if Headband Lady was just mean and selfish and not just as misguided as Mozu in a different way. Well, that and a few people in the cafe look at her like they expect a show. Mozu doesn’t wanna be a show, the crazy little lady from Hoshido who doesn’t like when women compliment her, and it ain’t even that Headband Lady isn’t cute, just that… it ain’t right, and she wishes everyone would just understand and Mozu could do what she thought was right.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a sharp clap and she follows it to hear a voice that Mozu doesn’t recognize from a person who she does. 

“Hey, everyone, let’s…” Olivia stands at the edge of the space behind the counter, somehow managing to yell quietly. “Get to eating, okay? Stick to that? Or drinking, I guess. Thank you.” Then she leaves the counter and addresses the Headband Lady and whispers something Mozu cannot hear but sounds sad regardless like she’s crying for everything bad that will ever happen. Mozu can’t take it. She can’t take being a burden, even if the way that another woman she barely knows caring about her feels better than every flirty comment anyone has ever said to her.

Flora finds her in the employee lounge both crying her eyes out and trying to dry them. She tut-tuts in an apologetic tone and promises to let Mozu stay in the kitchen. Soon, the pink-haired chef named Cherche is called to replace her, meaning the only person sympathetic to her in the kitchen is gone and the other two gently tease her when all Mozu wants to do is cry, because they don’t know how absolutely stressed that she is.

It settles down when the two others realize that Mozu is not in a joking mood, and the rest of the day passes before Mozu can blink. It all feels like when she sleeps and wakes up in what feels like an instant but isn’t. She supposes that she’ll have to thank Olivia, but she can’t imagine that Olivia even wants to see her. Still, she learned her Ps and Qs from when she was yea high so it’s basically an obligation. 

She meets Olivia at the corner of the cafe. “Th-thanks,” she starts shakily. 

Olivia looks like the conversation might melt her. “Oh…” 

Mozu bows her head, rain starting to pour over her, though she’s kinda used to it from spending so long farming in the rain. “I-I’m Mozu.” 

Olivia just leaves with a little  _ eep _ , and Mozu cries aloud in outrage. When she’s sure Olivia is gone, she kicks the chalkboard stand outside the cafe so hard that it falls over and Mozu has to put it back before Flora or one of the chefs finds her and ask what’s gotten into her, like they’d never believe that it would be easier on Mozu for Olivia to tell her to stop being such a creep than the absolute nothing that Olivia tells her all the time.

\---

The weekend is so long that Mozu feels like it’s never gonna end, then she finds a clock and an hour has gone by. Mozu doesn’t wanna be alone with her thoughts for two whole days, so she goes shopping for too long and buys too much. She goes on trips for too far away and gets too lost and isn’t really in a hurry to get home. She decorates, redecorates, and redecorates until she gets back to where she started, and though she tries really hard not to think about what a mistake ever leaving home feels like right now, she’s not very good at it. There isn’t really much anything to say except that it sucks and even though work terrifies her right about now, even though it feels hostile, hell, at least it’s something.

It’s pretty event-free when Mozu gets there. Every cog is in its place, the cafe is operating like normally, even if they’re all a little fuzzy and the whole thing feels a little dreamlike. She puts her things in the locker in the corner of the employees’ lounge and sits on the couch inside of it, taking a deep breath, then another, then all but meditating. 

Her attempts at inner peace are interrupted by Lune coming in and mumbling about how the cold can suck her dick. 

Mozu opens her eyes and perks up, watching Lune throw her things in the locker with such little grace that Mozu cringes and waits for something important to break. Lune’s still sniffling a little but not noticeably, just enough for Mozu’s mama genes to kick in and wanna make the kid some soup. To her surprise, Lune finds Mozu and sits on the chair next to the couch, looking at her intently. It’s a little overwhelming. 

“So I heard a little about what happened,” Lune confesses.

Mozu’s eyes widen. “O-oh… you did.”

Lune shrugs. “It isn’t that big of a deal. That girl is my friend, but yeah…” She sounds frustrated on a deeper level than Mozu knows. “I told her flat out, ‘Soleil, you gotta stop doing that’.” She places a hand on her forehead. “She really needs to stop doing that.”

Mozu nods. “That’s nice. Thank you.”

Lune smiles weakly. “Hey, you’re part of the Vilde crew. You’re basically family.”

Mozu whistles. “For real?”

“Far as I’m concerned,” Lune responds. “You’re good people, Miss Mozu.”

Mozu blushes. Lune calling her Miss is a lot more real than Soleil calling her Miss.

Lune snaps her fingers. “Oh, I just remembered,” she says in a tone that sounds like she didn’t  _ just _ remember. “Olivia wanted to apologize for, like, standing you up on your way out.”

Mozu raises an eyebrow. “She did? I mean… I didn’t think she thought about all of that.”

“She did. And Soleil heard all about it, which means I heard all about it.” Lune spaces for a second before remembering to qualify “Oh yeah. She and ‘Lei are like, related, something like a second cousin or what- it isn’t important and I’m rambling.”

Mozu shrugs. “Ah well.” Then she thinks about it, Lune letting her process. “Didn’t know they were related.”

Lune smiles. “Yeah, so I know her a bit even beyond working here. She’s… hella shy. Like,  _ hella _ shy. Like, if you think she's shy she's ten times shyer. That’s why she left when she did. I think even telling Lei off took a lot out of her.”

“Oh…” Now Mozu feels bad, and Lune’s little hmm figures her out when she bows her head. 

“I think stepping in for you like she did,” Lune assures her. “That took a lot of courage. So if you think she just… is weirded out by you, she isn’t. I promise.” The way she says that should have sounded more impartial than it was, but Mozu senses that Lune wants it to lead to something.

“Thank you kindly,” Mozu responds. Turns out, she’s smiling. Lune smiles back at her.

Maybe she will do something about that.

\---

Olivia actually tracks Mozu down after work on the street corner, hands clasped apologetically like she got a little pep talk from Lune as well. When Mozu apologizes first, something akin to shock but not quite is on Olivia's face. 

"I, uh… didn't really think of… who you were," Mozu starts. "Lune had to tell me… you know, don't be mad. She doesn't hate you. She's just…"

"Shy." Olivia sounds like the tiniest mouse that ever lived.

"I'm shy too," Mozu admits. Then she thinks. "Mostly." Olivia laughs. It's breathy but easier than Mozu expected. "Just… I'm from Hoshido. I like Ylisse. I like the Cafe. But…" She doesn't know how she can communicate that it's not fully right. That it's just the best that she can get. 

"I don't think I really thought of who you were either," Olivia confesses. Then, head still bowed- "Do you have friends?" 

Mozu has to think. "A few back home. And… I guess people I like at the Cafe. Flora's nice. Luna's cool." With a blush: "You're really cool." Olivia sputters and looks like she's gonna blow up. "Sorry! You're just… cool." 

"You're cool too." 

"Aw, stop it." Mozu brushes it off because it's not true. She'd like it, though.

"Can I be your friend?" 

Mozu blinks with a fierce gasp. Is this just… how people did it? As she covers her mouth in the refuge of silence, she realizes that Olivia isn't taking it back.

"I-if you want," she breathes. "I'd like that. To be your friend." 

Olivia gives the sweetest smile Mozu ever saw, even though she looks flustered. "Me too." 

\---

Mozu never knew how much having a friend filled in the gaps. 

Mozu had friends back in Hoshido. There were tons of little boys and girls around her age that grew up the same way with the same life and the same values as Mozu. Everything about Olivia is just more involved.

The two trade lessons, knowing what they like. Ever so practical, Mozu receives lessons and tips on how her fellow chefs operate, what they're like, what their names are. (Though when Olivia says the one named Cherche is gorgeous, Mozu gets a little pang of jealousy that swears not to let her forget.) In return, Mozu gives Olivia a few superfluous lessons in Hoshido language and culture, trying not to think that maybe she would enjoy harvest festivals more if she had someone like Olivia to go with. Their knowledge is limited, and Mozu recounts moments in her life in Hoshido while Olivia talks more about regular patrons. 

They generally text at first due to Olivia's shyness and Mozu's struggles with Ylissean. When they get the courage to, they make phone calls. Mozu's so scared the first time Olivia calls that she wonders how the hell she'd handle the first kiss. Mozu also feels like she's getting way too ahead of herself even thinking about it, but she tells herself “whatever”. 

_ Whatever _ ’s something she’s learned to say when she has a thought that villager Mozu never would let herself have, something to forgive herself, to tell herself  _ that’s not so bad.  _ Or when she's so embarrassed she wants to die but it's not actually a big deal. It’s something she only has done since she became friends with Olivia. It’s the first time she thought it was all okay.

Eventually, they graduate to video calls, meaning that Mozu doesn't have pictures to send herself, but it's okay because she's living in the moment. Even when they look like hell and they have to contend with Mozu's broken Ylissean and Olivia's rampant shyness, it feels more real somehow. They tiptoe into each other's lives, but Mozu doesn't care how long until it all overlaps as long as it does. 

The two start going to more places when they have really any free time. Sometimes when Mozu buys decor for her house, Olivia goes with and makes suggestions. They don't always fit, and Mozu suggests that Olivia visit her apartment for a better grasp on things before she lets herself think that, yes, she just invited over her crush and she said yes, and how after she visits, she's got a better appreciation for Mozu's homey style and Mozu has a better one for Ylissean periodic dramas that air on a public channel because Olivia is still trying to get better at asking direct questions. 

Mozu tells her that she doesn’t really have any streaming services. Olivia blurts that they should get one and then immediately  _ eep _ s and hides beneath a blush at her faux pas. Mozu nearly does the same at the idea of Olivia visiting more. It takes all of the courage she even knows of to say that she’d like that. Things relax between them. Well, more than relax. Things feel… more. Like they’re shy wallflowers but they’re shy wallflowers together.

Sometimes they'll leave together after work, take the bus somewhere, and just get lost, lost in streets lit on fire by stars and fluorescence, under shared umbrellas in rainstorms so small that their cheeks touch, with Olivia directing them along while Mozu follows with happiness, her footsteps saying  _ finally, finally, finally, I'm home,  _ even though she's not.

When they take pictures of the locations they're in, Mozu replaces the empty ones and sends copies to her mother, writing in Hoshidan "my friend Olivia," even though after she writes "my best friend Olivia" it  _ still  _ doesn't feel like enough. It still doesn't explain how close they get in every shot, how Mozu has an incense burner with incense flavored like Olivia's favorite pie (key lime), how the photos are taken by Olivia more than herself, how Olivia brought up the idea of becoming a roommate (when they both have studio apartments) and they blushed and let it go even though they both thought of it, how Olivia's lips have the taste of watercress and her skin the scent of new paper, and neither can pretend that best friends just kiss like they do, and neither want to. They’re not sure what they are, even though they’re so clearly approaching  _ partners,  _ because they’re still terrified stiff of actually declaring anything, actually declaring an end to so long confused and repressed, and Mozu’s still so nervous to actually be Mozu, but what they know for sure is  _ I guess I always liked you, Mozu, you were just… right,  _ and  _ Yeah, this feels really right. And you do too _

When Mozu goes to write  _ my best friend Olivia _ on the back of an image that Mozu took a risk and kissed Olivia on the cheek afterward, she starts to cry, because she's lying and telling the truth at the same time, because she doesn't know if her mama would be proud of her when she honestly kind of  _ should  _ be. How even though Olivia sputtered and squeaked at the spontaneity of it all, she held Mozu's hand in a way that thanked her. How it took all of her courage to kiss her at all. That she's  _ better than she used to be.  _

Still, she practices the Hoshidan word for "partner" every now and again, excited at the idea of letting whatever anxiety she has fade into the air. 

Ironically, the time they least spend together is at the Vildeblume. Mozu is behind the kitchen, Olivia at the front of the house, but the tiny smiles they share whenever their eyes meet during work could sustain Mozu for the rest of her years. Sometimes Mozu will whip up a couple of coffee cups and cupcakes and meet Olivia in the employee’s lounge and they'll rest in each other's arms during break or after work and just be for a while, and Mozu guesses that's what their dates are like.

Others notice a different Mozu. They usually talk amongst themselves with her and Olivia’s names, and Mozu has to remind herself  _ whatever  _ at being the talk of the town. They call them a couple when that's something they struggle to call themselves. Olivia said at the start that people talk about couples and she was scared of that, but it's happening now, and Olivia never seems afraid of that during their little dates.

When grabbing a mixing bowl one shift from over Mozu’s shoulder, Cherche says " _ now _ welcome to the club."

Mozu giggles. It feels right this time.

About two or three months in, Mozu decides whether it lasts or not between them, she just wants to enjoy the moments where they are under blankets in Mozu’s apartment, eating cereal and watching period dramas, the map of Ylisse on the far wall, photos of the two of them starting to take over the empty ones like a wave, because Mozu has always focused on doing one thing right.

Then again, something like this is more right than she ever could have imagined.

Mozu still does a lot of hard work but it's not like it was in the village where it was grueling and repetitive but it was easy to figure out. Mozu has to do things that scare her. Ask questions she doesn't think she has the right to. Tell herself  _ whatever  _ when she gets embarrassed over herself. Turns out that's what Olivia does too. Does she know how already or is Mozu just a good reason to learn? 

It doesn't really matter but Mozu still wonders, cause it’s the mightiest she’s ever been. Even when they don't have a lot to bring to the table, they bring it all. That's the scariest part of everything, but Mozu is happy to, and she reckons that's how she knows that her love is real. That it wasn't just a first sight thing. Been probably a few thousand sights by now and at least for Mozu that doesn't change, but judging by how Olivia looks at her like  _ she's home, finally, finally, finally,  _ Mozu is letting herself believe that she's in love a little too.

It's risky and unsteady, but  _ whatever _ .

**Author's Note:**

> Mozu and Olivia were two I had written before and I tried to communicate the stumbling blocks to connecting with people and coming out with culture shock and all that brings. I hope I did my best to present that well- this was a strange write for me but I enjoyed it!
> 
> The prompt Mighty was made to refer to this idea of hard work making you strong and what kinds made Mozu mighty.
> 
> Come back tomorrow for a story that I personally love!
> 
> -Maeve


End file.
